Game Theory (Time)
by Bacrep
Summary: This is a different type of fic without a plot, instead building the mechanics of the magical realm. It provides an explanation for time travel, a classification of trivia, Artifacts, magic, and establish a stable structure for power. Also, I supply uncanny ideas that can used by authors. Overall, it is recommended to writers who can organize a world around these concepts.
1. Cha 1: Analysis of Time (Pt1)

**Cha. 1- An Analysis of Time**

The concept of Time is used in a variety of fiction to create plot or suspense. For example, the writer can adapt the usual chronological sequence, which is the description of plot following the order that events have occurred in.

Another manipulation of time is flashbacks. A writer recalls a previous event in the past, which is used to insert key information.

Or, a story or event can start in medias res, or directly from the middle of its plot. For example, a writer can start writing from the climax of a battle, and then traces steps backwards or forwards.

Perhaps the most common is time skips. The description skips forward, say, three months, and the main character has achieved an accomplishment in training. Or the skip can be by a day, and the protagonists have now reached their destination.

But, these operations with time can all be accepted, because the readers establish a straight line of a sequence of events that are fixed and unalterable.

Then… there are setups for stories in which there is a power strong enough to alter time, like the Time-Turner, or Doctor Who's TARDIS, or simply, unexplained time travel.

Frequently, time travel is much-abused. On the surface, it can create a fun plot to write about, and everyone is happy.

But, if readers think deeply through the plot, then time travel can create paradox that causes trouble.

**In this chapter, I offer a basic theory of time that can be used in all plots, whether it has unbalanced gods, insane magic, unchecked power, or realistic fiction. By no means is this a scientific explanation. It is merely a concept that can be used.**

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I think about time as the result of a movement of reality. Let's use the analogy of how anime is created.

In anime-creation, the basic explanation is that people draw very similar pictures, each with a slight detail that is different than the last. Then, when the pages are quickly flipped through, movement is created.

If the artist wants a plane to fly overhead, then a plane is drawn entering the scene, with each picture after, more of the plane is revealed. Then, flipping the pages would induce the illusion that the plane is flying because our eyes are fooled.

Reality works the same way. There is a book with infinite thickness. Since the creation of the world, the pages had been flipping, and the universe within had been moving. Such movement and illusion is defined as **Time**.

Now, in stories, the so-called God or some powerful being can be responsible for creating the book, and it can be _the_ ultimate apparatus of power. Or it doesn't have to be tampered with. Everything exists within. It is itself the God. Writers have to freedom to design ideas around that.

For the purpose of this analysis, let's call this book the **Book of Reality**.

That was the easy setup to be comprehended. The logic becomes twisted when paradox are created.

For instance, Harry goes back in time to kill his grandfather. But that can't happen, because Harry wouldn't be born without his grandfather. Thus, his grandfather still lives, which will cause Harry to exist, and to go back and kill…

To this, I propose the **Solution of Infinity**\- when there is a paradox, then let's create an infinite cases of scenarios for the paradox to loop within so that it can never get out and affect reality:

In other words, let's make it so that there is not one Book of Reality, but rather infinite _**Books **_**of Reality**.

There are infinite books that are being flipped at the same time. However, each book is slightly different from each other in one of the details. Therefore, the infinite collection of books cover all different possibilities of what could happen. Possibilities where:

1) Grandfather is alive. 2) Grandfather is dead. 3) Grandfather has an arm chopped off. 4) Grandfather married another women… 5) Harry never touched magic. 6) Harry dates Hermione…

Consequently, for any effect that a time travel backwards or forwards can cause, it is included in one of these books.

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Example 1: Grandfather Paradox- a scenario where time traveling back causes an action that prevents the time traveling itself, thus creating a paradox.

When Harry travels back in time to kill his Grandfather, he left the Book of Reality that the first version of him resides.

Then, he travels to a second Book. The Grandfather he kills is from the second book, which has no relationship to him and his death has no impact on Harry's existence.

Now the "anime" of the second Book literally has the scenario of Grandfather dying to a young man dressed exactly the same and behaves exactly the same as Harry, and the young man happens to also go by the name Harry Potter.

When Harry teleports, he replaces the young man in the second Book and kills the Grandfather, which is what was going to happen anyways. So, the second Book is not messed up.

Then, he returns to his own realm, still alive. Nothing had happened in the First Book, because all has happened in the second parallel universe. No paradox created.

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Example 2: A more complicated version

This time, Harry is sent back in time to prevent, say, the world from ending because some monster had also teleported "back in time."

First, the monster had not teleported "back in time," but only to another Book. And, some wizard detected the destruction of "history," which is only the second Book's present, and mistakenly believes it to be "history." The second Book is only running late on its schedule by a few million years…

When Harry is sent back, he is sent to the second Book. Blah, blah, there is a fight, and the monster is killed. Harry teleports back. The world appears to be saved, because his world was not impacted at all anyways.

In the second Book, it is the description of the second "anime" to have a monster suddenly materialize, cause damage, and be killed by Harry, who immediately disappear after the monster's death. It is the axiom that separates this Book from another.

Even if Harry from Book 1 did not time travel, the same thing would still have happened.

In essence, the key to time traveling to save worlds and alter stuff is that people only PERCEIVE that something is change. In reality, nothing changed. What they had changed 'in the past' all belong to a different Book's present.

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Example 3: A scenario where the outcome DID 'change'.

Rather than killing the Grandfather, Harry has to travel back to save him from, say, poison by bringing him an antidote that only exists in the "future."

Yep, the exact same thing as the last two examples happen. **All time traveling means is to go to another Book.** Harry travels to a second Book.

The second Book IS EXACTLY the first Book, but it runs a few decades behind on schedule, in a dimension where infinite Books are flipping.

He goes through the motion of saving the Grandfather in the second Book, which IS the first Book's past.

The setup of the first Book is that in the unchangeable past, there is a young man who suddenly materialize out of the air and brings Grandfather the antidote to cure his poison.

Even without Harry "traveling back in time to bring an antidote," the Grandfather is cured. Harry only replaces the man in a different world and carry through the same motion that will be acted anyways.

Why, you ask, is there a boy who appears out of nowhere and disappears after the delivery? Isn't that a bit far-fetched?

Well, in a story with time travel, the ultimate challenger to logic, it's not much to add a materializing human. And, with this logic, time travel actually makes sense.

Therefore, the **claim that the outcome did change is false! There is no change. The Book is already programmed to be exactly the same whether Harry travels back or not!**

Well, you ask, what if the Grandfather actually did die to poison? What if there is no materializing boy who fed him the antidote? Good question.

If the Grandfather did die, then Harry wouldn't exist. Period. But, that is another Book. In this storyline, the writer is describing the FIRST BOOK! Not any other book.

Why does gravity exist? Because it does. Why is there a materializing boy? Because there is. It is a built-in principle of the First Book that cannot be altered. Altering it will make it into another Book.

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That is basically it. By no means am my writing supposed to dictate any outcomes or limit the imagination. It is up to the writer to decide the outcome of the time travel (i.e. if the monster ravaging the "past" should be killed or not). My solutions are just explanations that can be used to justify logic and rebellious readers.

Also, this explanation does not have to be known by the characters within a plot. They can still believe that time traveling back cause a change, despite it being futile.

After all, you might be writing a realistic fiction. There is not time travel, and all of this doesn't matter. A romance piece about students need no tampering with time.

In conclusion, there are **four** laws to Time Traveling:

**1) Time traveling means going to another book.**

2) The past, present, and future of any one Book is not changeable. It is a fixed line.

**3) There are infinite Books that cover all possibilities of one period AND all periods of time for any one Book that is flipping at the same time.**

4) It is an illusion that time traveling back and changing something is meaningful. The change would've happened anyways.

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**A/N: Thank you for reading. If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a review. Please remember to follow and favorite for future updates!**


	2. Cha 2: Staircase of Evolution (Power)

**Cha. 2- Setup of Power**

Following the topic of time, there exists another dynamic of plots with magic or superhuman abilities that is broken ALL THE TIME: Power.

I define power directly as "**The degree of capability to manipulate a force in the universe to encourage a change of normalcy.**"

Normalcy is the identification of how the world works without said magic or superhuman abilities. In other words, the true world in reality, one that we are currently living within.

Too many times I've seen transgression of logic in power, from anime to movies, the Disney Channel to Marvel. There are cases when beings who can manipulate space and reality get assassinated by a damn knife held in the hands of a mortal!

In this chapter, I propose a **Staircase of Evolution **on which mortals tread in order to achieve immortality.

In this system, the main restrictive 'antagonist' against all living things is Longevity, or the length of time one can stay alive before dying due to natural causes. Since this is designed to encapsulate all cultures of novels, the natural cause would not be a stroke of the heart, but the fading of your soul.

When Longevity runs out, that person's soul dissipates, and they die.

Normal mortals have a longevity of a hundred years. Theoretically speaking, if they do not die to an external force, such as a car crash or heart failure, they will live to a hundred, before their soul vanishes.

To increase Longevity and to avoid an inevitable death, mortals, over millennium, developed and perfected the process of **Evolution**, which is the general term for the methods used to infuse the **Qi **of the world into their bodies and souls to increase Longevity.

**Qi** is the fundamental elements with which the world is built. They are smaller than atoms. Qi is modeled after the infinitesimal strings in String Theory (Physics).

Different types of Qi created different things, and Qi mixed together permuted into even more varieties.

For example, a Ground type Qi created rocks and asteroids, while Water type created oceans and lakes. Fire, Ground, Water, Thunder… Qi mixed together created planets and galaxies. Others built cells and species.

They are the building blocks of the universe and are everywhere, and men found ways to utilize them to build their bodies directly. The end goal is to live as long as the universe.

In addition to Qi, there are also **Concepts**. Qi is the tangible layer of the universe that we can see. Concepts are what hides under the fabric, like Time, Space, Life, Death, Reality, Illusion, Destiny, Gravity, Resilience, Viscosity etc. As you can see, some sounds a lot more impressive than others.

If the universe is a machine, that the plastic layer is Qi, and the inner clockworks are the Concepts. Mortals and Evolved stand on the surface.

As people find different methods to infuse Qi, a system is built to categorizes the amount infused and the power one can wield: **The Staircase of Evolution**.

The **first **floor has nine steps: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

The **second** floor has four: Medieval, Ancient, Primordial, Legendary, Mythic.

The **third **floor has : Planetary, Solar, Nebulae, Galactic, Cosmic, Deity.

A common Mercury-Evolved can be taken down by the international champion of wrestling in the mortal world. A Deity is said to being able to shake the universe's roots.

***Clarification:** The universe expressed here is the fifth dimension that accompanies all of the Books, referencing to Chapter 1, not a singular parallel dimension.

Of course, based on your (writer's) own preference to how large the plot will be, the Staircase's power can be adjusted on your own accordance, so I will not detail their exact power.

However, one addition I do have in mind that adds to the eccentricity is as follows:

It gets harder and harder to jump from one step to another. It requires more time to build up Qi, and the barrier blocking one step to the next become tougher and tougher to penetrate.

To promote, an Evolved need to build up Qi. Once the Qi reaches a certain level, he is promoted. However, the problem is that building up Qi is like pouring tea into a cup.

The cup only has so much volume. Storing more Qi is like dripping tea. It'll seep down the rim of the cup. You reach a limit. The Evolved cannot promote without breaching the limit. I call this the **Carrying Capacity Effect**.

To promote, one must break the cup that have and build a larger one. However, there is HEAVY danger to doing so. What if you cannot glue the pieces together? Welp, then your body explodes and you die. I call this **Annihilation**.

Even if you didn't die, what if your cup gets smaller, or not large enough? Then you failed in your attempt, but you manage to live.

What determines if a cup can be fixed? A person's potential, the methods they use, elder's help, Artifacts,... that's up for the writers to decide.

Each cup is dramatically larger than the next. Exactly how large? That, again, is determined by potential, methods, so forth. That being said, two Mercurys can't balance out a Venus. Maybe ten can.

On the other hand, even a million Cosmic may not balance out a Deity. Each step of the staircase is not just a name, but the literal elevation to a higher ranking of life, higher ranking of a being.

It's the comparison between a cat and a mouse. Ten mice can't fare against a cat, no matter how strong of their species they are.

Therefore, the Qi storage increases exponentially up the staircase, and, with it, power.

An Evolved reaches a stage, stores up Qi for a while, grows slowly until the cup is full. Tries to breach the impasse to the next step. Success, his power grows tenfold. If not, he plunges into oblivion.

Many people can stay in a certain step without the ability or courage to advance. It's not surprising that 99% of people run out of Longevity and die in that step.

This is how **steps** shall work. Going from a step to a **floor** takes much more. Floor 1 is the training of the body. By the top of Floor 1, a Pluto may have, say, 10,000 years of Longevity, which also increases with Qi. Numbers can freely alter, of course.

Floor 2 requires more than a buildup of Qi, but a comprehension of the universe, or the aforementioned Concepts, which makes even a novice Evolved in Floor 2 unfathomably more powerful than the top of Floor 1.

Imagine this: You understood how space works and can teleport freely. Even if the mightiest warrior stood in front of you, will there be fear?

No. He swings with a blade. You teleport behind him and stab a simple knife into his heart. Good night.

Of course, that is a very unrefined analogy. There are circumstances where teleportation can't work, like being trapped in a small space, or if the warrior acted before you can react.

There are definitely special cases where Pluto can kill Planetary, which is what makes a good plot. However, the conditions need to be right, and there must be an ENORMOUS gap between the two levels.

The Concept doesn't need to be teleportation either. What if it's time? Even rudimentary understanding of the Concept of time is a Planetary.

Nothing crazy has to go on, like switching between timelines or whatever. Simply, by a snap, time slows down in a certain area by tenfold. The enemy moves like a turtle, while you can stride by their blade carelessly with normal walking speed and implant a knife into their jugular.

Which, again, is why there is such a gap between floors.

Floor 2 also has much higher Longevity than Floor 1, and it can be compared to the age of mountains and even planets. The key is that growth is exponential, not linear.

That being said, leveling up is harder too, requiring increasing comprehension of Concepts and long durations spent building up Qi. It's nearly impossible to 'understand the universe Concept,' obviously.

If I were to go tell you to "go dissect the concept of time," it's not an illogical prediction to say that you probably will die without a clue.

If Floor 2 demands only a partial understanding of time, Floor 3 requires the total grasp of the entire Concept. In order to level up, you must understand and grasp more and more Concepts in their totality, until you are able to create your own, which brings you to the level of Deity.

That basically concludes the Staircase of Evolution. Review or message me for any suggestions, comments, or inquiries.


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